The Champion

August 2003 , Page 28

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The over-criminalization of social and economic conduct

By Paul Rosenzweig

Eward Hanousek1 was
employed as roadmaster by the White Pass & Yukon Railroad, whose railway
runs between Skagway, Alaska, and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. As
roadmaster, Hanousek was responsible under his contract for “the safe and
efficient maintenance and construction of track, structures and marine
facilities of the entire railroad.”

One of the projects under Hanousek’s
supervision was a rock-quarrying project at a site alongside the railroad. The
project involved blasting rock outcroppings, working the fractured rock toward
railroad cars, and loading the rock onto railroad cars with a backhoe.
Hanousek’s company hired Hunz & Hunz, a contracting company, to provide the
equipment and labor for the project.

At the site, a high-pressure
petroleum pipeline ran parallel to the railroad within a few feet of the
tracks. To protect the pipeline during the project, a work platform of sand and
gravel was constructed on which the backhoe operated to load rocks over the

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